The present invention relates generally to reactive content security. More particularly, the invention relates to a novel technique for incorporating and/or controlling forensic watermarking at a content receiving system.
Many environments require that electronic files be transmitted in a secure manner. For example, text documents, images, audio, video and multi-media files are commonly transmitted between computers, or between servers via the Internet. The transmission may be intercepted or otherwise diverted or replicated, possibly leading to a compromise of security. A number of techniques have been developed to address such concerns. For example, forensic watermarks may be incorporated into content, which may help in analyzing how the content has been compromised. For example, the forensic watermark may provide details indicating a particular copy of the content (e.g., a copy provided from a particular source or a copy provided for an intended recipient). Accordingly, upon analysis of the watermark, it may become clear, based upon the data provided by the watermark, which copy of the content has been compromised
While such techniques are effective in certain circumstances, the actual security is again subject to the relative strength or weakness of the watermarking processes. For example, while source-based watermarking may provide an indication of a particularly sourced version of the content, it may not provide other indications, such as a particular recipient user and/or device.
Certain areas of technology are particularly demanding in this regard. For example, in multi-media production, large files are often exchanged between various parties, such as for post-production mixing, refinement, processing, and so forth. This is typically performed through the use of proxy video files, which may be somewhat substandard copies, produced in lower resolution or compressed, which may incorporate watermarks or other devices to limit their attractiveness to those who might consider pilfering such files. However, if such files are pilfered or otherwise pirated, they may be disseminated widely and easily, such as by posting on the Internet. Such activities pose hazards to security, and may greatly reduce the commercial value of the production represented by the digital file.
There is, at present, a great need for improved techniques for secure transmission and use of digital files. In particular, there is a need for a technique that will allow a provider of a digital file to quickly and easily create a file format or message that can be transmitted to or accessed by one or more designated recipients and that can ensure that information relating to the recipient is available as a forensic solution as those recipients access and/or manipulate the underlying digital content. Further, there is a need to reduce overly burdensome pre-processing of traditional watermarking approaches.